Chapter 2 #2
"It starts with overnight farm stays during calving season." I pull out of the parking lot, keeping my eyes on the road instead of her face. "Three farms are expecting births this month. We'll need to be on-site for at least forty-eight hours each time."
"Overnight?" Her voice goes dangerously quiet. "Together?"
"It's standard protocol for high-risk births. The farmers specifically requested—"
"You." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "The farmers specifically requested me to stay overnight. How convenient."
"Harper—"
"No, let me guess. The mayor thinks it's essential for the grant documentation. Really shows the 'round-the-clock dedication' or some other bullshit."
I risk a glance. She's staring straight ahead, that little muscle under her eye twitching the way it used to during finals week.
"You orchestrated all of this, didn't you?" Her voice is deadly calm. "Not just requesting me for the articles, but the overnights, the extended shadows. What's next, Nate? Did you arrange for us to get snowed in somewhere?"
"It's May."
"That's not a denial."
I pull over. This conversation requires eye contact, and I'd rather not crash my truck.
"Yes," I say simply. "I requested you. I suggested the comprehensive shadowing. I may have mentioned to certain farmers that having a journalist document overnight calvings would be good publicity."
"May have mentioned." She turns to face me fully, and the sunshine mask is completely gone. This is Harper at her most dangerous—controlled fury with nowhere to go.
"Why?" The word comes out broken, and it kills me.
"Because you've been avoiding me for four months. Because we need to talk—really talk—and you won't give me five minutes."
"So you trap me? Manipulate my job?"
"Would you have talked to me otherwise?"
She opens her mouth, closes it, looks away. We both know the answer.
"This is your chance to say no." My voice drops quiet. "I'll call the mayor, tell him the overnights aren't necessary. You can do the basic shadowing and keep your distance."
Her hand finds the door handle. One pull and she's gone.
But Harper Lane never backs down from a challenge. Even when she should.
"Drive," she says through gritted teeth.
"Harper—"
"Drive, before I change my mind and commit vehicular homicide with your own truck."
I drive.
The Morrison farm is only ten minutes away, but it feels like hours with Harper radiating fury beside me.
She's changed into the coveralls in the truck—a feat of contortionism I pretended not to watch in the mirrors—and now she looks like an angry farm hand who got lost on her way to a fashion shoot.
"The coveralls are too big," she mutters, rolling up the sleeves for the third time.
"They're mine from college." The words slip out before I can stop them.
She freezes. I see recognition dawn—these are the same ones she used to borrow when she'd help me with late-night calls to the campus barn. The ones she wore the night we delivered our first foal together.
"You kept these?" Her voice is smaller now, confused.
"I kept a lot of things."
The silence that follows is loaded with questions neither of us is ready to answer.
Morrison’s barn is chaos when we arrive. A cow in distress, Morrison's teenage son trying to help, and enough mud to film a war movie. Harper climbs down from the truck, and I catch myself moving to help before stopping. She doesn't want—
Her heel catches on the running board.
It happens in slow motion—her ankle turning, arms windmilling, the inevitable fall toward gravel. I move without thinking, catching her around the waist, pulling her against me to steady her.
We freeze.
Six years collapse into nothing. She's in my arms, breathing hard, her hands gripping my shoulders. The familiar scent of her—vanilla and something floral—short-circuits my brain. Her body fits against mine exactly the way I remember, like she was designed to be here.
"Nate." My name comes out breathless, and not from the near-fall.
"You okay?" My voice is rough.
"I—" She looks up at me, and for a second, there's no anger, no masks, no hurt. Just Harper, looking at me the way she used to, like I'm her whole world.
Then she jerks back so hard she almost falls again.
"I can handle myself." The sunshine mask slams back into place, but her hands are shaking as she smooths down the coveralls.
"You always could." My voice stays quiet. "That was never the problem."
"Then what was?" The question escapes before she can stop it, raw and real.
"The problem was me thinking you needed me to." The admission costs me, but I owe her truth. "I thought I was protecting you from my father's death, from the mess I was. But you didn't need protection. You needed a partner."
She stares at me, mouth slightly open, like I've said something in a foreign language.
"Dr. Wilder!" Morrison's voice breaks the moment. "Thank God you're here. Bessie's been struggling for an hour."
Harper steps back, rebuilding her walls brick by brick. "We should—"
"Yeah." I grab my medical bag, trying to ignore the ghost of her warmth against me. "We should."
But as we walk toward the barn, I catch her touching the spot on her waist where I held her, like she's trying to hold onto the feeling.
Or maybe trying to erase it.
With Harper, I never can tell.
Two hours later, Bessie and her calf are doing fine, and Harper looks like she's been through a war. There's mud in her hair, blood on the coveralls, and a smudge of something I don't want to identify on her cheek. She's never looked more beautiful.
"That was..." She trails off, staring at the calf taking its first wobbly steps.
"Intense?"
"Amazing." The word comes out soft, genuine. "I forgot how amazing this is."
She used to love helping with births back in college. Said it reminded her that life finds a way, even when everything seems impossible. I wonder if she remembers saying that.
"You did good. Your instincts are still there."
"Yeah, well." She strips off the coveralls, revealing the red dress underneath, now wrinkled and sporting a suspicious stain. "I should go. Need to write up today's notes while they're fresh."
We walk back to my truck in silence. She's already climbing in, that determined set to her jaw that means she's done talking for the day. I'm rounding the hood when I spot it—her notebook on the ground beside the passenger door, must have fallen when she stumbled earlier.
I pick it up, meaning to just hand it over. But it's fallen open, and my own name catches my eye.
The page is covered with "Harper Wilder" written over and over in her handwriting. Different styles—some carefully printed, some flowing cursive, some scratched out violently. And at the bottom, in small letters like a confession:
Mrs. Harper Wilder - still sounds right after all this time
My heart stops.
"Nate? What's taking so—" Harper's leaning out of the truck, sees the notebook in my hands. Sees my face. Knows what I've seen.
She's out of the truck before I can speak, reaching for it. "That's private."
"Harper Wilder." I read it aloud, watch her flinch. "You were practicing your married name?"
Her face cycles through panic, embarrassment, fury—before settling on defiance. "Was. Past tense. A stupid weak moment long ago when—" She cuts herself off, lunges for the notebook.
I let her take it, but catch her hand before she can retreat.
"I wrote you a letter." The words tumble out. "Before California. I was going to give it to you after graduation, explaining everything. Why I had to go." She goes completely still. "I still have it."
Her eyes fill with tears she's too stubborn to let fall. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't tell me things that don't matter anymore."
She jerks her hand free, clutches the notebook to her chest like armor.
"It matters." I step closer. "It all still matters."
"Then why did you leave?" The question hangs between us like a loaded gun.
Before I can answer, she's climbing back into the truck, slamming the door. "Just drive me back to my car. Please."
The ride to my clinic is excruciating. Harper holds her notebook like a shield, staring out the window. I want to explain everything, but she's built a wall of silence I can't breach.
When we reach my clinic, she's out before I've fully stopped.
"Harper, wait—"
She pauses at her car door, doesn't turn. "I'll be here tomorrow. For the article."
"I know."
"This doesn't change anything."
We both know that's a lie. The notebook might be in her hands, but the truth is out there now.
She wanted to be Harper Wilder.
And God help me, I still want to make that happen.